Obviously prices are higher. Have you noticed, though, that sizes are shrinking?
I love chocolate, paricularly Dove milk chocolate. A bag of it was $5.87! AND, when I pulled it off the shelf the bag was puffed up with air, and there were 10 pieces inside. I remember beingable to buy a bag for $3.50 and there were 26 pieces in it.
I put it back. I just couldn't do it.
Now, chocolate is a dumb example, I realize. The same thing is happening to everything. Here's the good news: smaller packages means you can store them more easily as you stock up before prices go hyper-crazy. And, another positive thing: it might be a good time to break some bad habits (such as not buying the chocolate, for me).
One last thought: the smaller volumes is a sneaky tactic, and many people will not understand the double-whammy and will go through their grocery money way too fast. Credit card debt will spike, but so will crime. Keep extra vigilant.
"the smaller volumes is a sneaky tactic"
That's been going on for years, I guess to keep the pricing at a level people are comfortable with. It's been especially noticeable with coffee over the past 10 years.
Yup - see the site I linked to elsewhere in these comments. This hidden inflation bullshit has driven me up the wall ever since I noticed it - which would be when OJ went from 64 to 59 oz (now at 52)(edit: IIRC, how I found said site). And all the shit they do like changing the packaging shape so it looks about the same size (cereal boxes falling off shelves due to this).
Fuck, people are so damn dumb.
Edit 2 - "I guess" - yes it's unbelievable the psychology that goes into this stuff. How something that people expect to not go over (say) 4 bucks means it will sell smaller at $3.98 but will just sit there if they raise the price for the same size to $4.anything. As Ayn Rand observed "EMOTIONS ARE NOT TOOLS OF COGNITION"!!!!!
Yeah the oj thing has been a hot button of mine for years. My kids laugh at how animated I get about it. 😂
Personally the bigger divot in the bottom of jars and plastic containers irritates the crap out of me. Wonder how big they can make it before people actually start realizing...
When they have to change the shape of the lid to accommodate it?
They'll learn someday.
I stopped buying it and several other things bc of the rising prices.
"If the size don't fit, you MUST acquit!" ;)
Good one! Definitely need to find humor in all of this. I hear it helps prevent people from going postal (if they ever did without an MK Ultra assist).
"Who put that there, Fuhrman?
They have been doing the old keep the price the same but lower the quantity you get for ages now. The other day though I was looking at chips and I noticed that not only was the price horrible and the bag had gotten noticeably smaller, but what was really deceiving was that the chips actually filled the entire bag, so compared to the normal size bags where you ultimately got more chips despite the bag being half empty it makes it physically feel like you are actually getting more chips even though you aren't. It was the first time I had seen something like this, I didn't realize they could get even more deceiving with this crap than they already are.
Shrinkflation….anyone who buys Kingsford charcoal has been witnessing it for years. If they raised the price however, that may prevent some from affording any?
A container of bleach hasn't been a gallon for at least a decade now.
Bleach was the first major item I noticed shrinkflation with.
And I noticed they are slicing steaks thinner. I remember when they were nice and thick cut.
At my local grocery store, sometimes the steaks are very thick cuts and other times thinner. Sometimes they're all thicker cuts, sometimes they're all thinner cuts and other times it's a mix. I don't know why that is, only that it's hit and miss.
You probably know this but independent butchers will slice you steaks as thick as you want and not jack the price up typically. When I want to ball out with the lady we buy a giant 2" thick bone in ribeye and split it between us, usually have leftovers too that make good breakfast the next day
Pot roasts are typically chuck, the cheapest cut.
Kroger always has a sale bin in the meat aisle. Yesterday it was buy one, get one free on chcuk roasts. I bought two. They were priced at 24 each so I got one for 12. Last year at this time they were actually 12 per with no sale.
So the cheapest cut of beef has doubled in price.
Three pound packs of hamburger have gone from near 6 to over 15. Five dollars a pound for ground chuck? WTF
The cheaper brands of bread are now 4 dollars. Dad picked up a half gallon of milk and paid 4.68. Granted it wasnt at a grocery store it was more of a market like IGA, but wow.
Delta Junction?
LOL who can afford steak today??
I have two freezers full of venison steaks. They arent as good as beef but I wont be buying a steak for awhile.
Quality's going down the drain too: water bottles with plastic so thin the bottle can't stand straight, onions with a strange gritty texture, garlic infested with bugs. These are just some recent examples from the last few weeks.
A personal favorite is recently the little plastic spout on cartons of half and half shrank to half the length/height. So a) the lid is harder to get off/on and b) pouring is less than half as neat. Some asshole bastard apparently figured out they could save $0.025 per unit resulting in a stock uptick of $0.00125 per share or some shit.
RTTB. (Race to the Bottom, as me and a friend lament basically constantly.)
Ahhh nice catch, I thought I noticed something similar on store brand heavy cream recently!
It happened on liquid laundry detergent too. I switched brands for the time being but I expect unless one of them catches on* the trend to continue.
*I noticed (IIRC) Heinz boasting that their worcestershire sauce is still a larger bottle than L&P - well, yeah, because however they do it no-one gets close to the real thing - I'd throw away cases of their crap before using it anywhere near food. But I digress....
Frenches worchestershire sauce for my beef jerky
gave up worstershire just last week as it has soy in it. husband won't touch the stuff. more money saved i guess.
I have a swig straight out of the bottle whenever I cook with it. My gf thinks this is hilarious. I asked her (she's Vietnamese) "what, don't you do this with fish sauce?"
eeks!
I remember when you could stand on an aluminum soda can with your full body weight and it wouldn't collapse. Try that today, I actually had a can burst (midway down the can) when I was putting it in the refrigerator by doing absolutely nothing. Aluminum cans are razor thin nowadays. And I don't need a lecture about "don't drink soda" - I have a can every other week (Dr. Pepper) that I mix with my favorite rum to unwind. Otherwise, I only drink water, eat healthy and I workout every day - friends say I should eat more, I eat plenty, and here I am eyeing 135lbs as my goal!
HEB cane sugar Dr B
It's a copy that's better than the original.
I'm curious if the same is happening where you live...check out the produce at your typical international supermarket. Here, near DC, all of the international grocery stores have the BEST produce while the mainstream grocery stores have nothing left but the dregs...
Huh, that's really interesting. I'll have to check and get back to you!
Shrinkflation has been going on for over a decade. The funny part is, they treat it like its a good thing (Looking at you Oreo Thins)
That is also for the 100 calorie smackers too. Or did I just give them another excuse? 😬
Fuck the woke-ass Oreos
https://leafbrands.com/hydrox/
But remember. Piglosi said “people working is causing inflation” Fed. Res. said “Inflation is momentary”. ”Inflation is because the economy is coming back so strong”🤮 (Sorry threw up a little in my mouth there!) “7.9% Inflation isn’t that bad” All these stupid, ridiculous, nonsensical reasons. If every single item you buy, EVERY ITEM, goes up by just 2%, every gallon of milk, loaf of bread, carton of eggs, etc. how do people with 2-3 kids survive!? We have had a chest freezer for about 10 yrs. I buy in bulk at Costco, SAM’S and at every store within 10 miles of me looking for clearance items I can seal and freeze. I just cooked a 4lb London Broil I bought at Safeway 4 yrs ago in my crock pot. It was delicious. The price $7.49!!!! My husband will be 70 in August. Was going to retire until the ST0len Elektion. He said we will keep working until Trump or another Republican is President. He makes 160/yr and gets his social security. We are saving every penny. EVERY SINGLE ONE!!!
put your money into some kind of hard asset -- otherwise, the $ won't have much value when the dollar tanks or digital becomes mandatory.
Chocolate has been changing sizes and changing prices ever since the 70s, when a Hershey bar was only ten cents. They would make the bar larger and charge more. Then they would make the bar smaller again and label it as still being the same price. Then they would repeat.
I saw this cycle a lot of times, as I was working in a store back then.
BTW, chocolate is good for you. Plain Hershey bars are good for long-term storage. If they aren't kept cool enough, they turn white, but they are still good to eat. I have eaten some that I had stored ten years or more, and they were still good.
Thanks! I will go back and get some Hershey's!
Buy green and blacks 85% organic all the rest is junk. Youll get a healthy dose of zinc and copper both in the pure form iv suggested, thye will bind With eachother and make a super charger. But rem you are what you eat and that other shit is just that .. let your food be your meds. Not your med is sin. Get it good!!!!
But... muh chocolate : )
Plain, as nuts will go rancid eventually.
I'm currently doing a test on peanut M&Ms. I bought a small bag in 1999, a "Millennium" special, and might open it in 2024. Then again, I might do better to sell it online. I saw a girl at a yard sale a few years ago who said she found an old dirty Lance cracker under a cabinet when cleaning. She sold it on EBay for $15. I might be rich. :)
LOL... you could test the waters with an e-bay post.
I've never put anything on EBay. I'll have to look into it. I have had someone else unload things for me on FB Marketplace. Those were all in-person cash deals.
i remember when a two pack of twinkies was 13 cents.
.23 for a loaf of bread?
Burger Chef and McDonald hamburgers were 15 cents, so were the fries and shakes!
imagine if there was no minimum wage and taxes were capped at 5% -- based on consumption and not earnings. We would be sooooooo much wealthier as a nation! The obsession with money and material things would be less pervasive (always there, of course) because the ability to earn enough for simple living would be greater.
I never saw any snacks back then with odd prices. They were always 10, 15, 20, 25 cents on up. It really hurt when candy bars doubled from 5 to 10 cents. You could get a loaf of bread for 10 cents when I was younger.
It's sad what has happened since 1913. I hope that when central banking fails and we go back on the gold standard, they will redo the currency 100 to 1 so prices will go back 100 years. BTW, whenever currencies have been revalued in the past, they didn't bother with coins. That means whatever coins you have would suddenly have 100 times the purchasing power. Needless to say, I have a crap ton of change saved up just in case. If that doesn't happen, there's still the increase in the melt value of the metal.
Chocolate is one of the healthiest foods on the planet. As is coffee. It's just that people mix them with terrible things like refined sugar and pasteurized milk. Both of which are just empty calories due to having all their nutrients stripped.
Prices are indeed higher but that is not due to supply issues, but rather, retard issues.
The average person did this by complying. They shut down the processing and manufacturing plants causing us to rely more and more on trade deficits while simultaneously printing more money.
The above is the reason why you pay more.
This leaves out just a little bit about fiat currency, the Fed, central banks, the cabal....
No it doesn't lol.
"Simultaneously printing money"---> means Fed already printing money ruining purchasing power prior to covid.
"Rely more and more on trade deficits" --> means it was already happening. It increased.
"printing" --> fiat currency
Cabal is included already at this point lol
Well, ok, I missed ONE sentence. All UP TO that, which again sorry I missed the whole thing, was about a) chocolate's worth, b) retard issues c) people complying. And glazing over a bit I skipped to "The above is the reason."
Soooo, yes, I missed your full point and sorry about that (and I look foolish) but I'd say this main point seems secondary to people being retarded/complying even now that I see the rest of it there, and that said I would argue the reverse. It sucks and annoys me constantly that people don't catch on to more stuff without it going all the way up their butt first, but they were admittedly programmed that way.
Sorry for the confusion.
All good, pepe fren. I hear ya.
Frito lay does this shamelessly. Its always x.99/lb. They change the weight by 1/2 oz at a time and the bag dimensions slowly over time. XL, party size, family size, etc. Store prices arent updated instantly either, so shelf tags say n.99/lb and ur really paying x.99/lb till tags/prices get updated. Not a big deal for one bag of chips, but a weeks worth of transaction's adds up(Office Space-esque), and that's 1 product. How bad are we being ripped off every week store wide? And for GMO garbage.
/end rant
"Party size" certainly indicates parties apparently ain't what they used to be by a damn sight....
I was gonna mention "family size" but they are trying to destroy those so it makes sense....
"tranny size" is coming next
Lol... maybe there's a "Big Mike" version
Mechanic I used to know
KEK
I guess the downpooter thinks Louis Tully throws swell parties
Told you
🤣
Shrinking packages really throw your recipes off.
Oh my gosh... I never thought of this. What a pain in the ass!
I hate to say this out loud but at least can sizes have stabilized around a little under a pound/16 fl oz for lots of things for a while now - enough so that lots of cookbooks state these amounts.
a) I doubt this lasts, now, and
b) it's still ridonkulous.
True... yet I have noticed that the substaance is meager. More broth.
Interesting. I don't cook with much prepared stuff, more like "1 pound" (i.e 14.5 oz or whatever) tomatoes etc. So sounds like I should look for (damn, wish I had old cans for reference) changes like calories and other nutritional content....
Yes. I noticed everything's shrinking.
In Walmart buying some earrings. Pack had 5 pairs of hoop earrings. Price printed on package said $3.88 but. was crossed out with a black marker and rang up $5.88!. Told worker that it is against the law to change prices higher if price already on pkg. She zeroed it out and gave it to me for $3.88. I had other items that had the same thing on them. She finally called over a Mgr. and asked who was “up-pricing” all these items? Mgr. said she didn’t know but would look into it as it was against the law! So Walmart is breaking the law, the Mgrs. know it but don’t do anything about it unless someone notices. So if you go to Walmart use the self checkout so you can be sure you are not being ripped off!
Nothing like doing without to wake people up. Suffering is the beginning of wisdom. Unfortunate but true.
This site tracks shrinkflation and more, granted I think the SERIOUS shrinkflation as you report is just getting going.
https://www.mouseprint.org/
PS I can report is sure seems Popeyes is downsizing - had chicken sandwich for lunch and while before/after is subjective in my case, chicken seemed smaller and now almost equaled by breading. Makes sense as combo was still under 9 bucks. Fuck, just charge me 12, don't shrink shit. I guess that's another place off the list till all this shit clears up....
Thanks for the website!
As others have pointed out, shrinkflation has been going on for quite some time. I just don't remember everything at once across the board shrinking so noticeably.
Oh yeah, I think we'll see a big step of it as a last gasp effort to try to hide the real inflation hitting now - they think it will keep working....
Pro tip: use your calculator (or calculator app) and divide price by oz. I know some places do this already but it has helped me tremendously figure out which stores/brands are trying to screw people over the hardest.
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups got smaller awhile ago and the SunMaid raisins box got thinner. They think we don't notice!
I bought a jar of Duke's sandwich spread, and it said that it was still 16 oz. The Kraft brand had dropped to 15 oz.
We have a septic system which I give a Rid-X treatment to once a month. Liquid version had it measured out for six treatments whixh is easier that messing around with the powders. I had the schedule so I bought in April and October. Last year, I bought the bottle - but now it has only five treatments. 😠
Shrinkflation.
Thank you for that. We just switched to cheapo Hill's coffee. We don't have too many vices left. If I lived in the city I would try to hook up wiht the closest rural community and see if anyone wants to sell meat, eggs, canned goods -- something like that.
That is wisdom. Hope you can make that arrangement.
thank you. i have lived in all settings -- city, suburb, and rural. back to rural and by far it is my favorite.
at the very least, finding a meat source is the most important.
I'm fairly comfortable with the idea of bartering what we grow for what we can't and are surrounded by cattle and deer. not too many people due to the weather :).
The changing volume sizes aren't just in food now. I bought a giant 40 fl. oz. of dawn dish soap several months ago. Buy bigger get a better price per fl. oz. Now when I went to buy a new one it was 38 fl. oz. and yet $0.80 more expensive over the old one.
Milk and eggs just went up again too. Store-brand milk per gallon of skim was at $2.99 for a couple months. Suddenly jumped to $3.19 in one go. Eggs used to be $1.99 per dozen for about half a year, now $2.79 per dozen in one leap. And there was a sign above that said "due to the bird flu, prices may rise and stock may be low." It's all orchestrated.
Yes and now most stores are not putting the ac on as much
Hot in most stores crap
They've been shrinking packages for MANY YEARS now!
Just paid off two credit cards. I will not pad the pockets of the Payseurs, Rockefellers, Rothschild and others anymore. The interest rates will rise. Time for everyone to bite the bullet and work to pay off debt. Make those tacos at home instead of patronizing Taco Bell. Make your hamburgs at home instead of Wendy’s , McDonalds, Steak and Shake. It is healthier, more nutritious and you know what is in it. Same with cutting and making your own fries and milk shakes. In the long run the quality is better and more bang for your buck.
Diesel is almost 6 bucks per gallon...that iszall passed onto the consumer.
Crime is already spiking where I live. On Nextdoor for my neighborhood, every post now is about somebody having burglars break in and steal stuff. I am not even exaggerating. It is like every post now is about some crime in the neighborhood.
Fritos are still $1.99 a bag, the store brand chips are still $1.50, and Twizzlers are $1.89 a pound. Why is it only real food is experiencing inflation?
Idk what country you’re in but if you have Aldi there, they have way better chocolate and the prices are much better. Some of their stuff has gone up but I’m noticing the staples are mostly the same price as they have been for years. I think that chain is raising prices on “specialty” items (I’ve definitely noticed that) in order to keep prices mostly stable on staple items. That said, they did just announce that their Germany stores are raising prices on many items so might happen in US stores soon too.
this is the weirdest downvoting i’ve ever experienced on this board. wtf lol.
I have a feeling we'll all be losing a little bit of extra weight